


All we did was care for each other

by Cirkne



Category: Descendants (2015)
Genre: DPD Carlos, F/F, F/M, First Kiss, Getting Together, M/M, Multi, v obviously mentally ill Carlos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-10
Updated: 2016-04-10
Packaged: 2018-06-01 09:54:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6513475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cirkne/pseuds/Cirkne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They're happy now but people in Aurodan forget nothing is ever that simple. They deal, together, because that's the only way they know how.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All we did was care for each other

**Author's Note:**

> Listen. Descendants has the best potential for poly relationships and there are like no fics this is a crime.
> 
> Carlos will forever be the same age as the others I don't care what the source material says. 
> 
> Thanks to my (sweet) crime fighting werewolf Swats for being a very patient beta and listening to me whine about this fic for months.
> 
> Title from the song Lean on.

Maleficent, the introduction to the chapter in their wicked history textbook reads, the worst of the worst. Mal lays on Carlos’ bed and stares blankly at the ceiling.

“Finally something I don’t have to study for,” she jokes to the room but her voice sounds dull and tired. “I should flunk it,” she adds after a moment. “Just for the irony.”

“You should,” Jay agrees from where he is sitting next to Carlos on the floor, their elbows and knees touching.

“I should,” Mal repeats, quietly now, more to herself than anyone else as if it is more than a joke now, as if she is considering it. Carlos turns his head away from his own textbook to look at her. You won’t, he thinks but doesn’t dare say it.

“Some believe that,” Evie reads out loud. “Maleficent felt maternal affection towards Aurora.” Mal scoffs from the bed, rolls onto her side.

“Whoever wrote that,” she says “obviously hadn’t lived with her for sixteen years.”

It’s quiet for a bit after that, Carlos turns back to the book, scans the words and then looks back at Mal, her eyes fixed on the fuzzy carpet, her hair wrapped around her neck, her arm hangs loosely over the edge of the bed.

“I want coffee,” he lies, throwing his textbook off to the side. “There’s nothing in there we don’t already know anyway.” Mal looks up and gives him a weak smile.

It’s been months since Ben’s coronation, months since they have chosen good over evil, months of knowing they are safe here but sometimes Carlos can still hear his mother’s insults, sometimes Jay still has nightmares, still frowns at every shiny thing he sees, sometimes Mal still looks distant and cold, sometimes Evie lays on her bed and tells them she won’t go anywhere because she’s ugly, worthless, _ugly_.

Bruises heal, turn from purples to greens and yellows but scars, scars stay, fade so that others might not see them anymore but you know; you remember. They’re there; always there.

Evie rests her book on top of Carlos’ where it has landed by the closet in their room. Jay frowns at the words, sighs and throws it there too, stands up.

“We could probably write it better anyway,” he tells the room and then moves to give Mal his hand so she can push herself off of the bed. Carlos watches Mal lean into Jay a bit and smile, and he feels weirdly warm; like this is how it’s supposed to be, like they were always meant to protect each other. He looks at Evie, worry and love in her eyes as she watches Mal, and knows that they have.

They walk to a bakery on campus and Ally, Alice’s daughter, greets them from the counter, all smiles and cheer. Jay and Evie go to order, Mal and Carlos find a table in the far off corner. You are safe here now, Ben had told them once, you don’t have to cling to each other anymore. Mal had lifted her head to look at him and Carlos had never before seen so much sincerity in her eyes. But we do, she had told him, we do.

Jay and Evie come back holding their orders. Jay rests a black coffee in front of Carlos and he stares at it. It reminds him of home, of his mother, of cigarette smoke. He runs his finger on the side of the mug and frowns at it. Old habits die hard he thinks and looks up at his friends. Evie is looking off to the counter and he follows her gaze to find ‘Special offer of the day: Apple pie’ written in chalk on the blackboard along with the other offers.

“We had a basket of apples at home, you know,” Evie says, quietly, still looking off into the distance. “Mother had poisoned one of them and everyone was welcome to take a bite if they dared.”

Carlos reaches for her hand on the table but Mal does it quicker.

“Fruits rot faster if they are in contact with other rotten things,” Carlos mumbles to himself and Jay bumps his knee with his. This is them, now and for the rest of time. They are everything to each other.

*

“If an apple falls or is hit by any force at all,” Evie says to the ceiling of her room. “The side of it that has been hit turns brown, that does not mean the apple is rotten, it just appears to be but is in fact still fine to eat.”

“That’s what happened to us?” Carlos asks her. He is laying on Mal’s bed while she is rummaging in the bathroom. Jay has tourney practice and the three of them are waiting for him to come back.

“We’re people,” she says quietly. “The laws of apples don’t apply to us.”

“They don’t,” Carlos agrees but he is thinking of how he used to look with scars and bruises all over his body and how there are not many people who would have looked at him and not thought _rotten_.

He is thinking of how his friends’ parents had seen themselves in their kids and how Cruella had never thought of Carlos as a part of herself but instead as of something she owns. Maybe that’s why, he thinks while looking at the closed bathroom door, she had no trouble beating him. He slides his hand under his sweater and runs his fingers down his rib cage. He doesn’t know how his skin would feel it if was soft and smooth and without any scars at all. Carlos closes his eyes and stills his hand on his side. This is him, he thinks, scars and marks and broken bones.

When Mal comes out, finally, holding a bowl filled with bleach in her hand, Carlos turns his head to look at her. If she wanted to, if she tried, she could change their hair with magic instead of using Evie’s home made bleach and her own spell book to make it good but this is something familiar, something they don’t want to lose. Not now, not when there are so many new things to learn.

“Which one of you wants to go first?” she asks resting the bleach on the corner of her bed. Evie makes grabby hands at the bowl and Mal smiles at her, motioning for her to sit up.

Jay opens the door and Carlos only looks to check that it’s really him, not someone else barging in on them. Jay’s hair is still damp from the shower and his book bag hangs loosely on his shoulder.

“Hey,” he greets them, drops his bag down on the floor. He moves Carlos’ feet away and sits on the corner of the bed. Carlos sticks them in his lap and grins when Jay turns to frown at him.

“How was tourney?” Evie asks while Mal applies bleach to her roots. Jay leans back on his arms and blows out a breath.

“Tiring,” He mutters, closing his eyes. Carlos watches his hair fall down his back. “If I didn’t have homework I’d already be sleeping,” Jay admits, turning to look at Carlos then. “You dyeing your hair too?” he asks and Carlos nods at him.

“Want us to dye yours?” Evie asks jokingly and Jay flips her off, pushes Carlos’ feet out of his lap to stand up and get his bag. He pulls out his chemistry notebook and sits down on the bed again, lifts Carlos’ feet to rest them back in his lap.

“I’ll help you if you want,” Carlos tells him and Jay smiles, pats his ankle.

“It’s ok, boy-genius, I can do it myself,” he says and Carlos kicks his arm at the nickname. Jay grabs at his leg, pulls him down the bed and as he does, Carlos’ sweater riles up. Jay frowns at the scars, at the burns left from his mother’s cigarettes. Carlos stares back at him. Jay has seen all of his scars before, they share a room now, it’d be hard not to notice but he still looks worried, still looks just a little bit angry. He’s out of it in a moment though, pulling Carlos further down to mess up his hair. Carlos, laughing, tries to get out of his grip.

“Careful,” Mal tells them, gripping the bleach tightly in her hands. Both Carlos and Jay stick out their tongues at her and she rolls her eyes. “Boys,” she mutters to Evie as if that explains it. Evie hums her agreement and Carlos and Jay are still chuckling to themselves. Carlos thinks, as he hits Jay’s hand to be let go, that they are all he needs.

*

With the class coming to an end, their wicked history teacher turns to everyone and asks:

“Could Maleficent ever be good?”

Mal stares out the window, her chin resting on her hand and Carlos shifts uncomfortably in his seat next to her. It is still dark outside, wicked history being their first class of the day.

A girl whose name he doesn’t remember, raises her hand to answer.

“We’ve seen villains turn good before,” she turns to look at Mal and Carlos as if what she just said is a compliment and Carlos wants to tell her that they were never villains, just kids that weren’t taught love or given a choice before they came here.

“If villains didn’t have any good in them they wouldn’t have kids,” someone else adds. “Kids are a product of love and love is good, pure.”

Mal is still starring out the window and Carlos wonders, for a moment, if she can see anything at all. When no one says anything else, he raises his hand.

“No,” he answers after the teacher calls on him. “Maleficent could never be good.”

“And your argument?” the teacher asks and Carlos frowns at the top of his hairline.

“I’ve met her,” he says then, turns to look at the person that was talking about love and children. “On the isle we aren’t born out of love,” Carlos says. “We are born because our parents want to have total control over someone.”

Mal grabs his hand and squeezes it under their desk. Carlos doesn’t know if she is showing support or telling him to calm down but he squeezes back, looks down at his notebook. No one says anything and the teacher changes the subject quickly. Mal never turns to look at him but never lets go of his hand either.

When the bell rings, when the teacher reminds them they’ll have a test next lesson, when they pack their books into their bags and walk out, Mal grabs for his hand again and they walk down the hall to their lockers like that.

Ben waves at them from where he is leaning against Mal’s locker, kisses her cheek when they walk up to him. He doesn’t say anything about the fact that Carlos and Mal are holding hands, doesn’t comment on the fact that Mal is quieter than usual. Carlos stuffs his books in his locker and thinks about how different it is here and wonders why, if it’s so different, does it still feel like he is choking on his mother’s cigarette smoke and why his bones ache even without any physical pain.

*

His mother, Carlos has to remind himself, cannot reach him anymore. Safe, he thinks and it echoes in his mind. Safe, safe.

Jay finds him curled up on his bed in their room and he doesn’t say anything, just sits down next to him. It is quiet and Carlos wants to say something, anything, but moments like these no words can leave his lips. He just wants to feel small and quiet and like he doesn’t exist at all.

“One day,” Jay tells him quietly. “Her memory will have faded so much you will forget what she looks like and you will forget what she did.” It is comfort that Jay is offering but he doesn’t know, not the way Carlos does. There’s no forgetting this, no leaving it behind. It will follow him for the rest of his life.

Jay reaches for him and Carlos flinches without meaning to. Jay moves his hand away and turns his back to Carlos. Carlos thinks of fur coats weighing him down, he thinks of being five and hiding in his mother’s closet just to be found, he thinks of being small and tiny and not being anything or anyone, of being empty space.

“One day,” Jay mutters “people will touch you and you will not be afraid because no one will have intentions of hurting you.” It sounds like a promise and Carlos thinks he should reach for Jay’s hand but his own is heavy next to him and he is cold and he shouldn’t move.

Safe, he thinks and it echoes in his mind. Safe, safe. Except he knows it already, except this is not about being safe but about being hurt at all. Mother, he thinks and she feels so much closer than Jay is. Mother, he thinks and it echoes in his mind. Mother, mother. It is a pleading, Carlos realizes but it is too late to beg for her to stop; she’s already broken him.

*

Carlos thinks he is nothing without them. He only exists when Evie is painting his nails and Mal is teasing him about his hair and Jay is pressed next to him.

He only exists now in this moment as he watches Mal and Evie run around in their first real snow. Snow that isn’t grey and wet and dirty. Snow that’s white and pure and beautiful. It’s better in Auradon, of course it is. Everything’s better in Auradon. Mal and Evie are shouting empty threats at each other and laughing and he thinks they are better in Auradon too. They are children here. They are kids. They’re loud and happy. They’re allowed to be happy.

Carlos is cold, shivering but it’s so beautiful and he doesn’t want to leave, doesn’t want to go. He exists here. Exists in the way Evie turns to smile at him and the way Mal shouts for his help when Evie catches her and the way Jay hurries to come back to them, hot chocolate in his hands. He leans into Carlos and gives him his cup, places Evie and Mal’s next to himself on the bench.

Hot chocolate is warm in his hands and Carlos almost doesn’t want to drink it but he’s too cold not to. Evie and Mal call a truce so they can warm up too and they join Jay and Carlos on the bench, their cheeks red and giant smiles on their faces. This is what it’s like to be alive, Carlos thinks and he wouldn’t trade it for the world.

“I never understood why she was called Snow white,” Evie tells them looking at the snowflakes fall down around them. “But if she was even half as beautiful as real snow I understand why mother was jealous.”

They hum their agreements and Carlos turns to look at his friends and smiles at snowflakes resting on their hair and their eyelashes. I love you, Carlos thinks with all of his being. Jay takes his free hand in his, Evie links their arms together and rests her head on his shoulder. It’s just them, them, nothing else exists in their world of four and Carlos doesn’t exist outside of it. This is all he is, this is all he has.

“You three are all I have,” he says, not really to them, just says it.

“That’s not true,” Mal answers but it doesn’t sound like she disagrees, not really.

“You three are all I need,” Jay says in response and Carlos smiles, squeezes his hand. Love, Carlos realizes, doesn’t even begin to describe how he feels. Everything he feels, everything he _is_ begins and ends with them.

*

Evie draws a heart on his inner wrist and Carlos catches himself looking at it all through math. Jane asks if he has a crush on someone and Carlos shakes his head as he is rushing to lunch. Mal tells them, easily, while they are sitting at their usual table, that she broke up with Ben.

Evie frowns at her, Jay swallows his bite of Carlos’ cupcake and Carlos drops his fork, swears under his breath.

“Are you ok?” Evie asks before Carlos can even open his mouth and Mal nods, smiles at them.

“He was the only one here to believe in us and I thought I liked him but I-” she shrugs, brushes imaginary lint off of her skirt and looks down at her hands before speaking again. “I don’t love him the way you’re supposed to love a boyfriend.”

“Did he take it well?” Jay asks. “Do I need to give him hell?” Mal smiles at him, reaches for his hand over the table and squeezes it lightly.

“He was nice about it,” she assures him. “Ben has a kingdom to rule and a girlfriend would just distract him so it really is better if we’re just friends.”

Jay nods at her and Carlos keeps his eyes on their hands for a moment too long. No one else seems to notice, no one else seems to pay them that much attention anymore. Life goes on at Auradon prep. Mal has just broken up with her first boyfriend and they are teenagers, young, simple teenagers. This is how it was always supposed to be, Carlos thinks and bumps his knee against Jay’s.

Jay moves his hand away from Mal’s to throw it over Carlos’ shoulder, grabs at the rest of his cupcake and grins when Carlos is too slow to stop him. Carlos rolls his eyes at Jay, turns to Evie and Mal. They are leaning into each other now, looking at something on Evie’s phone and smiling.

“We should watch a movie today,” Carlos says and Mal lifts her head to look at him, raises an eyebrow. He knows what she wants to tell him is that it never works because the four of them can never actually agree on a movie but Carlos doesn’t care, doesn’t care. He just wants them with him always, always.

“Sure,” Jay says from beside him and Mal shrugs, looks back at Evie’s phone.

“Sure,” she mouths. Carlos smiles down at the heart Evie drew on his wrist. Sure, he thinks and his chest feels weirdly warm.

*

He should have known, Carlos thinks, as panic starts to set in and he’s struggling for air. He wasn’t made for strong emotions, wasn’t made to feel love this big and he is panicking, panicking, trying to breathe but it is so hard. Everything is closing in and he feels nothing at all yet everything at once. Waves are crashing into him and Carlos is falling, falling, swallowing water, he is drowning in his own emotions.

He wants them here with him, holding his hand and yet he doesn’t want anyone to touch him. He wants them here to listen to him talk and yet he doesn’t want to speak. He’s numb, empty, numb and guilty. So guilty, he doesn’t want them to know, doesn’t want them to see him like this. Pity claws at his heart more than anything else does. They are pretending, something in his mind tells him and they are, they are. They have no other choice with him telling them they are all he has it’s pity, pity, it’s guilt. They do not love him, they do not know how to love something so broken. Something so dirty, so worthless. He is nothing, he wishes he was nothing, he is a waste of space.

Carlos should feel safe here, should know his mother can’t reach him anymore, should have gotten over it by now but he is guilty, guilty of playing the victim and he imagines her reaching for him on purpose. Maybe he likes pain. Maybe he enjoys being miserable. Maybe self-destruction is all he knows. Maybe it is all he was taught.

Carlos is gasping for air because his lungs are filled with emotion that doesn’t leave much place for anything else. He thinks of all the times he asked for validation and they were there to give it to him, thinks of what a hassle he must be. Dirty, Carlos thinks as he’s rubbing at his arms. Dirty, dirty. As if the isle has somehow gotten into his skin, as if the way his mother treated him is ink on his hands. Dirty, Carlos thinks but it isn’t coming out and he is panicking, panicking.

“Why do you leave everything so dirty?” he asks, angry, as soon as Jay walks through the door and Jay shrugs as if it isn’t important, drops his bag down to make even more mess.

“I’ll clean it later,” he says, easily and Carlos clenches his fists by his sides.

“Clean it now,” he hisses and turns up to pick up Jay’s bag and hang it by the door but Jay is faster than him, grabbing it and throwing it on his bed. “Why are you such a fucking pig?” he asks and it stings as it leaves his mouth, this is not what he thinks, not what he wants to say, he doesn’t want Jay to be angry with him but nothing else comes out.

“Why do you care so much?” Jay asks and he’s still not moving to clean, still just standing there as if this is nothing.

“What if she sees this?” Carlos asks. “What if she sees I don’t keep this room clean, I-” he says but doesn’t get to finish because Jay is moving, hanging his bag in it’s place and then moving to pick up his shirts off of the floor.

Carlos should stand up and help him but he stays sitting on the floor, scrubbing at a spot on the floorboards until Jay comes to sit next to him.

“She will never hurt you again,” Jay says, his voice soft, soft and Carlos closes his eyes. He knows, he _should_ know and yet.

“I’m sorry,” Carlos says, leans into Jay until he’s resting his forehead against Jay’s shoulder. “Everything is just so dirty. _I’m_ so dirty.”

“You’re not,” Jay tells him and pulls Carlos in closer. “You never were.”

Jay holds him and Carlos can breathe again.

*

Carlos was never able to tell dreams from reality. Sometimes he lies awake and imagines conversations he’s never had with people he’s never met. With people that aren’t real but have faced the same kind of pain that he has. They would understand, Carlos thinks and curls into himself trying hard not to open his eyes, not to let reality rip him away from this.

Some part of him knows he shouldn’t want someone else to take care of him. He knows this the same way he knows Evie is important without a prince and Mal is worth the world even without her mother. Carlos should be strong on his own, able to take the weight of abuse on his own shoulders but in his mind he is small and fragile and thin. He is see-through and abuse is a disgusting red. It is painting his skin slowly, slowly.

Sometimes the lines blur even more. He looks at books on library shelves and avoids the fiction section. It is too easy to get lost in something that promises you things that are better than the ones you are given. Carlos lays on his bed and tries to make sense of everything that is real and everything that is not but it never comes to him. Everything feels blurry around the edges and he thinks of the people that would know what to do and how they are always fake and maybe he is fake too. Maybe his pain was only made for fiction.

Evie knows how to make it better. She lays next to him on the bed and whispers him words from books he hasn’t read yet. All of the stories are better in her voice anyway. Carlos wakes up when she is next to him and he hopes she never leaves, never lets him get lost again. Evie holds his hand all the way through a maze made out of rose bushes. There are no shadows when she is with him.

Carlos dreams of things he cannot explain and wonders how people know their nightmares aren’t real. When he wakes up in the middle of the night he’s never screaming, never asking for help. Instead, there are no words at all and he rolls over to the other side of the bed, closes his eyes again. There are things he can afford getting upset over and there are things he simply can’t.

Evie presses her shoulder to his at the lunch table and she is real, solid, she is right next to him and Carlos wishes he knew how to say things without messing them up, wishes he knew how to tell her she is what he knows best. She’s real and so he is real too.

*

It is midnight and Carlos’ feet hurt and he is unbelievably tired and he thinks he should be able to hear more than Evie’s humming coming from the bathroom and the quiet of Mal’s breathing but he doesn’t.

Mal is wiping glitter and make-up off his face and her hands have never been as soft as Evie’s but Carlos doesn’t care, leans into her touch and the napkin, damp and cold on his skin.

Carlos doesn’t know what it’s like to be drunk but he can’t keep his eyes open and everything feels hazy around him and he figures this is his version of drunk. When he opens his eyes, just for a moment before he closes them again because of how heavy his eyelids feel, he can see Mal smiling at him and it feels different, unguarded. She never smiles like this in the light of day.

Evie leaves the bathroom still humming and Carlos follows her voice all the way to the door. She stops just for a moment but doesn’t say anything, leaves the room to them.

“Should we be letting her leave in that state?” Carlos asks, his words slow and slurring.

“Jay will take care of her,” Mal answers, easily, runs her fingers down his chin where there must be glitter and her skin is warm against his.

“Jay’s just as drunk as she is,” Carlos tells her as if she didn’t know already. Mal puts her hands on either side of his face and moves to see how he looks now, after she put effort into making him look presentable.

“They’ll take care of each other,” Mal promises still checking for more glitter on the sides of his face and his hairline, his neck. Carlos hums his agreement because Mal’s right, she always is.

Half an hour later, Mal emerges from the bathroom. Carlos feels tired but for some reason is struggling to fall asleep, and she’s on the phone with someone.

“No,” she says and her voice sounds strangely like her mothers. “I really don’t, Ben,” she adds and Carlos turns to look at her. She is frowning at a spot on the carpet, listening to whatever Ben has to say. She sighs moments later, runs a hand through her hair. “We can talk when you’re sober.”

She rests her phone on the table and climbs into bed with Carlos, rests her head against his shoulder, lets out a huff of air.

“I know he’s just trying to stay my friend,” Mal says, finds Carlos’ hand under the covers and intertwines their fingers. She sounds tired, tired. There is a beat and Carlos thinks of how everything important to him fits in a singular room before Mal adds, a lot quieter now: “I like girls.”

“Hm,” Carlos hums, squeezes Mal’s hand. He hasn’t thought about it before but it makes sense now with her pressed next to him. “Me too,” Carlos says, moves a little closer to her. “Girls and everyone else.”

Carlos says it and realizes how wrong it sounds because it’s not true. He doesn’t like everyone else he likes _them_. He likes Mal, Evie and Jay because nothing else outside them really matters.

*

Their winter holidays are about to start and Carlos lays on Evie’s bed, in a patch of sun coming through the window that isn’t warm but still makes him feel lazy. Evie is telling them about the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Carlos isn’t listening but he never wants Evie to stop talking and so he closes his eyes and hums once in awhile just to make her go on.

It’s Tuesday, or maybe Wednesday, Carlos doesn’t know but Jay still has Tourney practice and he selfishly wishes he didn’t. When they were still on the Island, Jay had thrown a bracelet at him and told him no one would buy it so he could have it instead. It had a charm of a caged bird on it. After Ben’s coronation, Carlos meant to throw it out to show that they really were good, that they didn’t need stolen things anymore. It still sits in the bottom of a drawer next to Mal’s drawings and a pair of gloves Evie had sown him. Sometimes he thinks the bird charm is laughing at him but it’s always in the middle of the night when he is tired and the moon shines on his hands so it’s never real.

It takes him a moment to realize Evie is silent and when he opens his eyes, slowly, he can see her looking at Mal and Mal is looking back at her and Carlos might feel like he’s intruding but they are everything to him and he wants to see every important moment in their lives.

He thinks, maybe, he should feel like he missed something. Like he should have noticed this before but he also thinks he already knew somehow because this is the only thing that makes sense. Like maybe if someone from the Island saw them now they wouldn’t be surprised.

Carlos lifts his head to look at the clock. Jay should have already come back and maybe he went to their room first. Carlos knows, eventually, Jay will open the door to see the three of them and it will make sense to him too. It still makes Carlos a little uneasy that he’s not here but he can’t do anything and so he lets his head fall back on the bed and waits.

Some time later, Evie starts talking again but her voice is quieter now and Carlos isn’t yet asleep but he’s no longer awake either so he can’t really make out what she’s saying. Or if he can, he doesn’t know what it all means. He thinks she says his name and then maybe Mal’s too. Carlos feels strangely like he is letting something important slip through his fingers but then the door opens and Carlos knows that whatever he lets fall, Jay will catch.

Carlos falls asleep before Jay says anything and everything around him feels so light. In his dream he is floating and when he wakes up the room around him is dark and Evie, Mal and Jay are talking about something on the other bed. Carlos still doesn’t know what it means and he’s not really listening anyway.

*

When he opens the door to their room, Jay is playing a video game. Mal’s flipping through her spell book and Evie is still in her room sewing. She kicked them out an hour ago. The halls are completely empty, dried up mistletoe still hangs from the ceiling. It is Christmas eve and everyone has left. They are the only ones with nowhere to go.

On the Island, he wasn’t a person, he was property to his mother and everyone thought he wanted to leave because they all did, because Auradon had better stuff to steal. Here, he sometimes forgets what he’s supposed to do because no one tells him. He depends completely on his friends and it’s not a good thing but it’s better than it used to be.

He tries to think back to Christmas on the Island but in his mind it is all blurry and stuck together. He didn’t know then and if he did, it wouldn’t have changed. Ben asked about his birthday once and Mal had to answer for him. Days have no meaning. Tomorrow at noon, they will have a real Christmas meal, Fairy godmother promised. He knows she felt guilty they have to stay in school, he knows she used magic to make sure that until everyone gets back, they get to experience everything they missed. Carlos thinks he’d be happier if their food didn’t differ from any other day.

“Carlos,” Mal says not looking up from her spell book and her voice sounds stern and far away for a moment. Like he is a child constantly causing trouble and she is tired, tired. He realizes he’s still standing in the same spot, the door behind him ajar. He shuts it and moves, sits down on his bed and swallows, looks at Mal’s fingers, sliding over the page. He presses a hand to his neck and his hands are so cold, his skin burns under it.

“It’s really hot,” he says and Jay turns his video game off.

“Shouldn’t we supposed to be doing something?” Jay asks, walking over to Carlos. “It’s Christmas eve.”

“It’s an equilibrium,” Carlos says, leans against Jay’s shoulder once Jay sits down next to him. He feels strangely tired.

Mal lifts her head to look at the door as if expecting someone else to have walked in, then frowns and turns to Carlos.

“A what?” she asks and closes her book without looking down at it, rests it on the bed. Sometimes she does it with no intention of actually putting it down, just to show that she’s listening. Carlos doesn’t have the long explanation she’s expecting.

“It means that all of the actions trying to change something cancel each other out and so everything stays the same,” he says and doesn’t feel like he’s explaining it to her, just talking. “They can’t change us,” he adds after a moment when Mal is still looking at him.

“They made us good,” Jay offers, puts his arm around Carlos as if he’s holding him up somehow. Carlos thinks Jay doesn’t need to touch him to do that.

“We made ourselves good,” Mal says before Carlos opens his mouth.

*

“How do you know when something is real?” he asks Evie. They are laying on Jay’s bed. Her hand is in his hair and they are under the covers because it’s cold and Carlos likes winter but he misses warmth now and he misses being able to lay on the grass and feel light.

“When it exists outside of you,” she answers and it’s not what Carlos expected but he thinks he understands. Jay didn’t quit Tourney when Carlos did. Mal has a sketchbook filled with things they haven’t seen. Evie sows when they aren’t around.

He tries to think of how he exists outside of them. He does, he knows he does but it all feels fuzzy right now and Carlos is fine with that.

*

“You think there is love for everyone? Like soulmates and fate and stuff?” Jay asks when they are sitting in the library. The staff is supposed to come back from break tomorrow. The book opened before him has a purple cover.

On New years eve, Carlos curled up under every blanket he could find in the room and didn’t move until the fireworks stopped. Mal hugged him later and apologized for something that wasn’t her fault at all.

“No,” he says and hopes he is wrong.

*

When it happens, Carlos realizes he’s been waiting since they first stepped out of the limo and were met with everything in Auradon.

When the sun rises in the morning and a flower bursts open, that’s what happens to them, Carlos thinks. It is expected, waited, it is nothing new and yet it feels sudden and beautiful. Evie is giggling at something Mal just said. Carlos blinks and they are kissing. Jay grabs his hand, almost instinctively, almost like he is telling Carlos not to miss it because this is special. They pull away and Evie is still giggling and her cheeks are pink and Carlos notices, only now that she hasn’t worn make-up around them in weeks and quietly, selfishly wishes no one else gets to see her like this.

“Took you long enough,” Jay says but it’s not exactly directed at either Mal or Evie but instead at something none of them see, at something that maybe isn’t even there at all. He says it with his eyes closed and his hand still in Carlos’. Took you long enough, Carlos thinks, too.

Mal kisses Jay and their mouths are closed and they both grin at each other afterwards as if it’s a joke only they understand, as if it’s a challenge somehow.

“I’m not attracted to you,” Jay tells her and Mal smiles happily and kisses him again.

“Me neither,” she says, her hands framing his face. It feels like this is a conversation they’ve already had. Carlos lets go of Jay’s hand and stands up. He feels awfully dizzy and he doesn’t yet know whether it’s a bad thing or not.

He looks at Mal, her hands still on Jay’s cheeks but her eyes focused on Carlos: intent, hopeful, soft. Mal thinks that everything in their life is her responsibility.

He looks at Evie. Her sweater is blue like it always is and Carlos thinks of the time she wore Jay’s jacket over her dress and looked small, fragile. She’s still blushing, just a little bit. She’s the strongest person Carlos knows.

He looks at Jay, at his shoulders, down his arms, at one of his hands placed carefully on Mal’s waist and the other one still where Carlos dropped it. If he left, even if he went back, Carlos would follow him.

He wants this so badly it makes the room too hot and everything around him too loud, it’s too much and yet as he’s looking at them, it’s not enough at all.

“Carlos,” Mal says and her voice is quiet, calm, soothing. He thinks of how Maleficent raised her to hate joy and how she does everything to make sure they are happy.

I love you, he wants to say but the words won’t leave his lips. He closes his eyes and when he opens them again the room is too light for him or for any of them and why did anyone think this was a good idea. And why them, anyway? Why not anyone else?

“Why,” he says, more a statement than a question and his mouth feels dry, dry.

“Because,” Mal starts like she means to explain this, everything to him but her voice falls short and Carlos realizes she doesn’t have an answer and neither do Evie or Jay. Because. It is the beginning and the ending to that sentence, to their reason for everything that’s happened and their reason to loving each other too. That’s how it’s supposed to be, they all know and they do not wish to question it in fear it will be taken away.

He wants to tell them, now more than ever, about how he feels like they are everything and he himself is nothing but not exactly nothing. Maybe, he’s just empty and they are what fills him, makes him true and real and sometimes just as full. He wants to tell them but he doesn’t know how and so he sits back down.

“Ok,” he says, exhales and feels like he is giving himself up for them, like if he lets them have him, he will eventually become a person. Evie takes his hand and Jay presses his to Carlos’ shoulder and Mal breathes out, quietly. They sit there, like that, and nothing happens. To them, he is already a person.

*

On the bad days, he forgets they are dating and thinks of how much it hurts to love them when they do not know of it. They are always there to remind him and, eventually, they become bad hours instead of entire days and that’s the most he’s improved since the coronation.

On the good hours, days, weeks, he allows them to kiss him and kisses them back and their touches are careful and kind and they never hurt or sting or make him want to hide. Mal is in love with Evie and she loves Carlos and Jay. There is a difference but he doesn’t see it, cannot touch it, doesn’t feel it, so it stops existing to him.

When Evie’s upset she only allows Carlos into the room and he tries not to take pride in it, makes sure she knows how much he loves her. They go to Jay’s games and hold hands on the bleachers and cheer so loud their throats hurt and Jay beams at them all the way from the field and when they’re back in their room, he’s too giddy to kiss them but still tries every time. Mal asks them, sometimes, if she is enough for them, if she should somehow be better. Carlos knows that without her they wouldn’t be who they are and that she’s important, so important. One day, he hopes, she won’t have to ask and for now he reminds her, just like the others do, that she is everything, everything in their world.

He thinks of how this is it, this is them, now and for the rest of time. They are everything to each other.


End file.
